


Munificent - Going Away

by cutsycat



Series: Dictionary.Com Word of the Day Drabbles [1238]
Category: NCIS
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-02
Updated: 2019-05-02
Packaged: 2020-02-16 02:13:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,307
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18682051
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cutsycat/pseuds/cutsycat
Summary: Tony's been unhappy at NCIS for a while. When he wins the lottery he sees his chance to leave NCIS. A very different take on the whole Tali story line.





	Munificent - Going Away

**Author's Note:**

> Another dictionary.com word of the day drabble. This time from 09/20/2002 for the word [munificent](http://www.dictionary.com/wordoftheday/2002/09/20/munificent).
> 
> munificent  
> [myoo-nif-uh-suhnt]  
> adjective  
> extremely liberal in giving; very generous.  
> characterized by great generosity:a munificent bequest.
> 
> This is for prompt #4 of the September 2018 Five Prompts Challenge located [here](https://ncis-discuss.livejournal.com/149431.html).

It had been a whim, buying a lottery ticket. Tony really wasn’t much for gambling, not like his father was. He’d seen what that did to his dad and he didn’t want that in his life, so he very rarely gambled, preferring to stick with more personal bets that he stood a better chance of winning. 

Things had been hard recently. It had felt like the whole world was against him. Gibbs had stopped giving him the respect he deserved as SFA a long time ago.

Tony had written at least one resignation letter, but so far he hadn’t been able to turn it in. Then Ziva decided to dump her daughter on him. Oh sure, they claimed Ziva was dead, but Tony knew better. 

He wasn’t anyone’s scapegoat anymore. He looked around at Bishop. She’d become almost like a sister to him. 

He hated to leave her in the lurch. McGee, though, Tony no longer felt the brotherly connection that he used to. McGee had hurt him too many times for him to still consider him part of his family.

Gibbs had hurt him the most, though. Abby would kill him for what he was considering. She didn’t understand that the team no longer felt like a family.

She thought that if she just wished hard enough and held on tight enough that it would solve everything. Jimmy would understand the best. He’d really grown up and come into his own. 

He’d seen how many things were hurting Tony. Ducky would with time understand as well. The old man wouldn’t take it well at first, though. 

He couldn’t believe that he was actually considering resigning from NCIS. There was no way in hell he was talking custody of Ziva’s daughter. He had no idea what game she was playing.

He’d been shocked when he’d realized that he’d actually won the lottery with the ticket he’d bought on a spur of the moment feeling down for himself decision. Money had never really been the reason that he stayed at NCIS, but it might actually be his ticket out without feeling insanely guilty. He had one confidant that would understand and back him up that he could run this plan past.

He’d never expected Fornell to end up being such a good friend, but after he retired from the FBI they’d started running into each other more. He knew Fornell had been struggling, raising his daughter on his own. The retirement had been good for him once he’d stopped trying to drink himself to death.

Fornell didn’t really have the money to take care of Emily without a job, but he’d chosen to get a PI’s license instead of going back to the bureau. The FBI required too many hours and too many dangerous cases and missions for the only parent to his little girl. At least as a PI, he could pick and choose his cases and make sure that he was always available when Emily needed him. 

Tony had actually ended up helping Fornell out on one of his cases. The bureau just didn’t cover the art of the con, really, which was a lot of what Fornell had ended up looking into as a PI. He’d expected the cheating spouse cases, but those had been few and far between. 

The people who thought they were conned and wanted their money back, though. Those cases were a dime a dozen. Tony had given Fornell some pointers and they’d struck up a friendship that hadn’t been possible when Tobias had been with the FBI and arresting Tony for this, that, or the other thing he hadn’t done.

Tony called Fornell to tell him that he planned to turn in his resignation and leave everyone he still cared about a gift. Actually, he planned to be munificent and give gifts to even those he didn’t care about, but that would be affected by him leaving. He didn’t expect Fornell’s response.

“Give me a minute.” Fornell glanced at Emily and then moved into the back bedroom and shut the door, hoping that she couldn’t hear him. “Are you fucking insane?” Fornell snarled into the phone.

“What?” Tony blinked in surprise at Fornell’s raised voice. “I thought you would be happy for me.”

“Do you have any idea what Gibbs is going to be like when you leave?”

“Gibbs doesn’t care if I’m there or not. He’s just as happy to have McGee or Bishop as his SFA, trust me.”

“If you believe that, you’re only deluding yourself. The guy would move heaven and earth to keep you as his SFA. Do you have any idea how many people have considered offering you a job only to be scared off by Gibbs?”

“No.”

“Well no matter, what are you going to do about Tali? You can’t just send her back to Ziva.”

“That will be Gibbs’ problem.” Tony smirked. “He’s the one who thought of Ziva as a daughter.”

“Tony,” Fornell drawled warningly, “don’t rush into this decision. You can’t afford to make a mistake here.”

“I’m not. Money was never an issue for me. That’s not why I stayed.”

“Then why are you leaving now that you have more money than you can reasonably know what to do with.”

“Because it’s time. The money from the lottery only allows me to leave without feeling guilty about leaving someone in a lurch or facing the wrath of Gibbs.”

“I still think you’re making a mistake.”

“If I am, it’s mine to make.” Tony retorted calmly, still not sure where Fornell was coming from, “I thought you were my friend, Tobias.”

“I am.”

“Then be my friend and support me.”

Fornell sighed, “I will. I just want to be sure you’ve thought this through.”

“I have. Don’t worry. I’ll leave you plenty of money to support you and Emily.”

“Thanks, Tony. Take care of yourself. Stay in touch.”

“You know I will.”

“You better.”

Tony smiled as he hung up. After that conversation, he changed his plan slightly. He’d been intending to talk to each person that he was leaving behind personally, but if even the person who was in his corner thought he was insane there was no way anyone else would understand.

Instead, he set about arranging for the gifts he wanted to leave behind for each of them. It would be Tali’s job to hand them out as she thought appropriate once he’d turned Tali over to Gibbs and filed his resignation with Vance. Normally, he would speak to Gibbs in person about this, but well he couldn’t see that conversation going well after what Fornell said.

He knew it was kind of cowardly, but he couldn’t chance anyone changing his mind. He was finally ready to leave and he wasn’t going to allow anyone to change his mind. It would be tricky to pull this off, but he knew Tali would help and Vance would happily accept his resignation.

Vance had been disturbingly eager to get rid of him. He couldn’t see that that would change. After he wrote what he wanted to say to each person and added it and the gift or proof of the gift to an envelope, he labeled each envelope and added them to Tali’s backpack.

Now, they would go to NCIS. Tony would ask Gibbs to watch Tali and then turn in his resignation to Vance and leave. No one would even realize what had happened until he was already gone. 

It was perfect. He just hoped he hadn’t misjudged anyone. For once, he wasn’t trying to cut all ties with his old life, but he still wanted to start a new life preferably without anyone from his old life that knew how to contact him trying to guilt him into coming back.

Fortunately, Tali was old enough to understand simple instructions. “Now, you understand, darling, you’re to give the envelope for each person to them when they ask about me and not beforehand, right?”

“Yes, dad.”

Tony shook his head. “I’m not your, dad, kid. I don’t care what Ziva told you. Now, let’s go.”

They climbed into Tony’s car and headed for NCIS headquarters. Tony had the day off, but knew everyone else on the team would be there as would Vance. It would be perfect. 

He escorted Tali through security before heading to the bullpen. “I need to talk to Vance. Can you watch her for me, Gibbs?”

Gibbs gave Tony a once over before nodding. Tony flashed a grin and headed up to Vance, resignation letter in his hand. He’d thought about leaving something for Jared and Kayla with Vance since they’d all lost Jackie, but he hadn’t been sure how Vance would take that kind of generosity.

He was still kind of pissed at the man for the agent afloat business, but he was trying to part on good terms. You never knew when being in good relations with the director of a federal agency would come in handy. So instead, he’d decided to leave Vance a promissory note or IOU of sorts.

Basically if Vance or his family ever needed money they could contact Tony and he would do his best to help them out. Tony walked up to Vance’s secretary, Cynthia, “He in?”

Cynthia nodded, “Go on in.”

Vance folded his hands into a steeple, staring over them at DiNozzo. “What can I do for you, DiNozzo?”

“I’ve been thinking about this for a long time and I think it’s time for me to move on. I’ve really enjoyed my time with the agency and wish you the best, but it’s time for me to go.” Tony held out the envelope with his resignation letter in it.

“We’ll be sad to see you go. You tell Gibbs?”

Tony shook his head. “No. I don’t think he’ll take it well.”

“He’ll take it a lot better if you talk to him and explain.”

“I’ll think about it.”

Vance nodded. “Was there anything else?”

Tony set another envelope on Vance’s desk, “For a rainy day,” he shrugged and left.

Vance eyed the envelope, pocketting it to look at later before returning to the paperwork that had been strewn across his desk since before DiNozzo entered. He hoped DiNozzo would talk to Gibbs. Tony took a deep breath and headed downstairs.

He’d planned to just leave. Not say anything to any of the MCRT and just walk out. Now, he was reconsidering. 

“Why’d you come in today, Tony? Wasn’t it your day off?”

Tony nodded, “Yep, but I had to turn in my resignation.”

“What?” Bishop and McGee blurted.

Tony ignored their exclamation and kept his gaze on Gibbs. Gibbs was the real wild card in this situation. Gibbs simply nodded.

“It’s been a long time coming, DiNozzo.”

“You know it, boss.” Tony nodded and headed for the door.

“DiNozzo!” Gibbs yelled, “What about Tali?”

“She’s yours now, Gibbs.”

Gibbs startled and looked down into Tali’s eyes. Tali smiled. Gibbs’ heart melted and he shrugged.

McGee, though, wasn’t having it. “Where are you going, Tony? And why?”

“Anything you need to know is in the envelope, Probie. Ask Tali.” Tony waved a final goodbye and walked into the elevator, the doors closing behind him, signifying the end to a legacy.

The bullpen was silent. Bishop and McGee started talking a mile a minute trying to figure out if this was a prank Tony was playing or if he was deadly serious. Gibbs let them go on for a bit to get it out of their system before he ordered, “Back to work.”

Tali handed out the letters for the three of them and then settled behind DiNozzo’s old desk to entertain herself while Gibbs and the others worked. Gibbs glanced over at her periodically before refocusing on his work again. He hadn’t opened up the envelope Tony gave him via Tali. 

Truthfully, Gibbs wasn’t sure he wanted to know what was in it. He’d known that this day might come, but he’d hoped when Tony passed his 2 year mark with no sign of it that it wouldn’t happen during his lifetime.

Unaware and uncaring of the turmoil he left behind, Tony headed back to his apartment. He still had a couple weeks of NCIS work left, though, he had a feeling that he could get Vance to let him take vacation instead of staying on for two weeks. He wasn’t sure if he wanted to do that, but there was a lot of prep work to do to prepare for his new life.

He was definitely turning over a new leaf, but he still felt attached to the old one. NCIS had been his family for a long time, but family moves away and makes new family. It was time for him to do that. He hoped that everyone understood and respected that after reading his notes. He knew the gifts, often of money, but sometimes a specific gift made more sense, would go a long way to easing any hard feelings there were.

He looked forward to hearing from them again once he started his new life in France. He’d heard that it was a very beautiful country and looked forward to finding out for himself. It would be different, but different wasn’t bad. He knew this was exactly what he needed. 

If they truly were his family they would understand, if not, better to find out now than ten years down the road. He didn’t really expect any of them to be too upset with him though. He was pretty sure most of them had noticed that he’d been kind of going through the motions the last couple of years.

In fact, this decision was the first thing he’d truly been happy about in a while. He couldn’t wait to start his new adventure.

**Author's Note:**

> The dictionary.com series has 18 stories already written for it after this one, so I will be posting at least 18 stories before I stop posting again. I'm hoping to get more stories written before then, so that I don't stop posting for a while. Wish me luck! 
> 
> It's 2019 now and I have closed my 2018 Prompt collection, but fear not my 2019 Prompt Collection is now open [here](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/cutsycat_NCIS_Prompts_2019/profile). Just click the sign up link. ;) It will remain open until the beginning of 2020. I'm hoping to complete all the 2019 prompts by the end of 2020. Do not fear I have not forgotten about the 2018 prompts and will continue working through them. It's just easier for me to not get overwhelmed if I keep the prompts separated by the year they were given to me.
> 
> If you are not an ao3 member, you can prompt me [here](http://cutsycat.livejournal.com/50701.html). Please follow the same rules as are listed in the above link. However, because this is a handmade prompt form(that thinks it's a poll), it is considerably more limited than what ao3 provides, so please use the ao3 form if you're an ao3 member. Please note the name option is for a name that I can say this is for so that you know it's for you. Since this is for non ao3 members it won't be true gifts, but you will be mentioned in the notes. Please note if you have already voted in the poll and would like to request more stories you can just add a comment to the poll. Please include the name along with the prompt, so that I can appropriately gift the prompt to you.
> 
> For any authors that want to chat and/or are looking for a place where they can toss plot ideas around and get input from people, you can come join my discord server that is specifically geared towards writing/encouraging people to write and authors. The invite link is [here](https://discord.gg/HFvwpCq). If you're not an author, but want to chat with me about writing/stories or anything else you are welcome to join. I reserve the right to boot you from my server if all you do is pester me about updates, however. *grin* Really anyone who wants to talk about writing and/or plot ideas for various stories is welcome to join. 
> 
> I do not currently have a discord dedicated to my stories. If anyone would be interested in joining a group chat server that is focused on my stories please comment below. Also, if you would like such a thing what kind of things would you like to know about? Please share those with me.
> 
> Also, Drakonyashka has translated a couple of my works into Russian. [Tutelage](http://archiveofourown.org/works/12378780) and [Imbue](http://archiveofourown.org/works/12378840). Go support them. 


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